Practical Skills

I've always taken pride in the fact that I have many practical life skills. I know my way around a toolbox. I can mount shelves and pictures using a level. I can mow a lawn. I can bake and cook with tasty results. I can do basic computer troubleshooting. I know how to sew on a button or adjust a seam. I can hook and bait a fishing pole. I can, etc...

This past weekend my dad and I rotated the tires of my car and changed the oil and filter. And all the while, my dad kept asking me if I would write a blog post about it. I laughed and said maybe, since I already had other posts planned out before that. So this post is going to give a nod to this past Sunday, where I had the time and skills to do some standard care for my car.

There are a few things I've taken to learning on my own. How to knit, how to bind books, how to remove bumper stickers from cars, and change the chains on bikes - these are in my repertoire as a result of trial and error combined with research. Most things can be learned this way. But everything listed in the first paragraph I learned at a base level from my parents, and would not have expanded the breadth of this knowledge as far as I have without their initial push. My mom the baker made sure I was comfortable in our home kitchen, encouraged me to develop my flavor palette and watched over my knife techniques. My dad the computer programmer urged me to explore the ins and outs of a computer from an early age, giving me an edge on my peers as the technology evolved. I learned sewing from both of them. And so on.

Whenever I exhibit my practical skills to another adult, someone who maybe didn't see how I was brought up or they simply don't know me very well, they would often remark about how impressive it is to see. They're floored that I have these abilities, this background of experience. They say that they don't see many of my age group, "the millennials," with the same abilities. It's not always said, but the tone that follows implies laziness on my peers' side. That they are the ones who lack the drive to learn these things, that they are a drag on society as a result. It's a tone of dismissal and disgust.

But I know I'm not the only exception to the rule. I know too many people with these abilities, these learned skills. Some of them are self-taught. Many of them learned it from parents, or authority figures. And it makes me wonder how many of my allegedly skill-less peers are just not being taught by the experienced adults in their lives. Not everyone has a drive to learn, to seek out knowledge. Not everyone knows there's this knowledge that they're missing. You can't go looking for something you don't even know about!

So I'm a "lucky one," then. But that's no excuse for the tone of dismissal and disgust. I know the things I know because someone (be it a family member, friend, teacher, or myself) saw a gap in my knowledge and decided to teach me. Don't dismiss these hypothetically ignorant individuals. Take the chance to teach, if they are willing to learn. Everyone can use some new practical skills.